The Eyes

The Eyes

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Gertrude Stein on Comforts of the Past

In a 1934 interview, Gertrude Stein lamented that "people today like contemporary comforts, but they take their literature and art from the past. They are not interested in what the present generation is thinking or painting if it doesn't fit the enclosure of their personal comprehension. Present day geniuses can no more help doing what they are doing than you can help not understanding it, but if you think we do it for effect and to make a sensation, you're crazy. It's not our idea of fun to work for thirty or forty years on a medium of expression and have ourselves ridiculed."

Gertrude Stein (1922)
By Jo Davidson
Terra Cotta
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery


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